


all over (but the screaming)

by mehnema (swedish_furniture)



Series: six o'clock, tv hour [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Zombie Apocalypse, choose your own ending because i sure didn't, written in 2012 and it shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:34:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28783512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swedish_furniture/pseuds/mehnema
Summary: It's the end of the world as they know it, as the song goes, and John doesn't know what he's even going on for.(He’s carrying on for Sherlock, obviously.)
Series: six o'clock, tv hour [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2111784
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	all over (but the screaming)

**Author's Note:**

> okay so like. look. i don't even remember watching Sherlock. did any of us really watch Sherlock? was it a collective fever dream we all had in simpler, precedented times? who is to say? certainly not me, a simple internet jester jingling miserably for your amusement. i don't even remember writing this fic, im just clearing out my old files and decided if i had to see this, so do you. 
> 
> i did no editing to this, it was preserved in its natural state, like Alexander the Great in a tomb of honey.
> 
> the title is just a bunch of words that i found out, after a brief google, is actually a british phrase, so lets chalk that up to divine intervention or something. please enjoy.

It’s not the end of the world, mainly for the fact that the end of the world has already happened.

(No one knows how it started, _where_ it started, but there are rumors that almost all of midwest America has been razed to the ground.)

John doesn’t know most of the survivors in the abandoned hospital they’re squatting in- they’re all strangers, for the most part, dirty and scared and confused. Sherlock’s here, and so’s Mycroft, and John doesn’t know where any of the others are. Lestrade, Missus Hudson, Anderson, _Harry_ \- for all he knows, they’re dead.

(He hopes to god they’re dead, prays for the first time since before Afghanistan, because that’s better than the alternative.)

When the world went to hell, hell came to the world, and there are _things_ out there, in the dark, and no one’s ever seen anything like them. No one’s ever _wanted_ to see anything like them. 

There are werewolves, and shapeshifters, and demons, and ghosts, and _zombies_ , which are by far the worst, because dead things are supposed to _stay_ dead, especially when they’re wearing the rotting faces of people you knew, and no one knows how to kill any of them.

(After the world ended, John had met two Americans- he’d assumed they were brothers, or lovers, or maybe both, because he’s in no position to judge, not now- with eyes that were tired and guilty and old old old. They’d told him- fire, salt, silver, holy water- but there’s only so much John can do and so many people he can’t save.)

It’s all he can do to keep calm and carry on, and some days, he’s not sure what it is, exactly, that he’s carrying on for. He’s carrying on for Sherlock, obviously, and, to a lesser degree, Mycroft, but they’re adapting, as the Brothers Holms are wont to do, and they need him less and less.

(The apocalypse has wrought a change in Mycroft, and he seems…smaller, now, without his shadowy, ambiguous, networks to manipulate. Sherlock takes it in stride, as he takes everything in stride, but he’s staying closer to his brother now, keeping an eye on him.)

Sherlock and Mycroft are out on a foraging mission at the moment, because in this new world, they all have to reuse, reuse, reuse, until everything left is used up. John’s in what was probably the nurse’s break room, back when this was a functioning hospital- not a refugee center- and he’s treating a man who may or may not have tetanus.

(It’s so hard to tell, nowadays, when someone’s sick, and it’s even harder to treat them, but John’s trying his damnedest to keep this scraggly little bunch of humans alive.)

But suddenly, the door bursts open, and John isn’t thinking about whether or not it’s tetanus anymore, because Mycroft staggers into the room, half-carrying Sherlock, and they’re covered in blood. John freezes for a moment, because Sherlock’s not moving, can’t tell if he’s even _breathing_ , and this is just like the last time, except the last time had been on a crowded street in a city before the world ended, and last time Sherlock wasn’t _really_ dead, not even close, but maybe the rules have changed his time around, because it’s post-apocalypse and maybe Sherlock really can die now. Mycroft levels a vaguely threatening glare at John’s patient- “ _Out_.” he snaps, and John watches in a vaguely detached manner, as the man hobbles out of the room.

( _‘It was probably tetanus.’_ he thinks distantly, but he can’t bring himself to care, even though now, that man is probably going to be dead within a week.)

Mycroft places Sherlock down onto the vacated table, and John realizes that maybe he should ask what happened.

“Wha-“

“Ambush.” Mycroft cuts him off, speaking quickly, glancing over his shoulder, and he actually seems a little…anxious? “Sherlock was…Sherlock was bitten.”

John would swear his heart stopped, except for the fact that he knows it’s still beating. “By what?”

“Zombie.” Mycroft replies curtly, and John doesn’t relax, because that’s a luxury no one can afford anymore, but it could have been so, _so_ much worse. (With zombies, there’s a small chance the victim isn’t turned, and it’s just a nasty bite wound. It’s a _small_ chance, but it’s better than werewolves, who it’s a hundred percent certain when someone gets bitten, or vampires, who torture their victims for days on end.)

“Does anyone else know?”

Mycroft shakes his head. “I brought him straight here. I didn’t…if they knew…” He doesn’t finish either statement, but John knows what he would have said.

_‘I didn’t know what to do.’_

_‘If they knew, they’d kill him.’_

Sherlock’s not popular, because it’s a different world, but it’s not _that_ different, and people just don’t like Sherlock Holmes. If they knew, they’d never take the chance, they would have killed him the second Mycroft had dragged him through the doors. But John can’t do anything for Sherlock, doubts he could have, even if the infirmary was fully stocked, and he was working in an actual hospital, instead of out of an old break room. There’s no cure for zombie bites, there’s just the wait- and the screaming that goes with it.

And then, Mycroft moves towards the door, saying that he’ll leave him to it, and John swears he sees him glance towards the drawer he keeps his handgun in, and then, suddenly, he _realizes_.

(That’s the same gun he’d used to save Sherlock, a lifetime ago, when a madman gave him a choice between life and death, and now, Mycroft wants him to make that choice for Sherlock.)

John’s alone in the room with Sherlock now, and even though he can tell he’s breathing- _barely_ \- Sherlock hasn’t opened his eyes, and maybe the best thing for it is to put a bullet through that mad, brilliant brain right now. Sherlock might never wake up, and even if he did, there’s no guarantee that it’s _Sherlock_ that’ll be on that table.

There’s more of a chance that he’ll wake up a monster.

For the life of him, John can’t make a move towards that drawer.

Because Sherlock Holmes has always been good at beating the odds, doing the impossible, and, John prays again, as he sits there, watching him, that he’ll manage to pull it off yet again.

**Author's Note:**

> jingle jingle motherfuckers.
> 
> drop me a comment if you suffered through to the end, you are braver than every single Marine. stay safe as safe as you can in these trying times, i love all of you.


End file.
